Njeri Ndungu and Teresa Soley

Craft and Science in the Early Modern World

Home Culinary Reconstruction

30 January 2016

Objectives:

·      Reconstruct 17th century recipe as recorded in Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne’s Archimagirus anglo-gallicus: or, Excellent & approved receipts and experiments in cookery

·      Gain experience in the practice of historical reconstructions

·      Consider practical applications of knowledge gained through such research

·      Learn skills of deciphering historical recipes and conducting research to acquire modern equivalents

Recipe

Mayerne, Théodore Turquet de, Sir (1573-1655, attr.),  Archimagirus anglo-gallicus: or, Excellent & approved receipts and experiments in cookery [London]: Printed for G. Bedell, and T. Collins, and are to be sold at their shop at the Middle-Temple-Gate, in Fleet-street, 1658.

Experiments in Sugar-works

134. To make paste of flowers and Colour of Marble, that which way soever you break it, it shall be like Marble, and betwixt the light, it shall look very clear, and shall in eating taste of the natural flowers.

 Take all sorts of pleasant flowers, as violets Cowslips, Roses, Gilly-Flowers, Marygold, or any other pleasant flower, and beat them in a morter every flower by its self, with sugar, until the sugar be turned to the Colour of the flowers, then put a little gum-dragon to the beating thereof and so beat it out into a perfect paste, and when you have made six pieces of paste of several colours with them, every flower, will taste of his nature, then rowl your paste thin, and lay every piece of paste one upon another in mingling sort, then roule your paste into a small rowle as bigge as your finger, then cut it into little pieces overthwart, as big as small nuts, then rowle them thin, that you may see through them; dry them before the fire, and when they be drye, you may box them, and keep them all the year.

Modern Translation

Wash and dry the petals of about two-dozen flowers. Flowers with smooth, fleshy petals such as roses are best, and multiple colors may be used if a ‘marbled’ appearance is desired in the final product. Fill the bowl of a mortar with the blossoms (approximately one cup) and begin to pulverize them with a pestle, gradually adding two tablespoons of powdered sugar as the petals begin to liquefy. Once this mixture is combined, add one teaspoon of guar gum powder and mix with a small metal spoon. If the mixture still appears to have excess liquid, add up to one more teaspoon of guar gum. Once the mixture takes on a rubbery texture, transfer from the mortar onto a sheet of parchment paper, shaping into a ball. Place another sheet of parchment paper atop the paste-ball, and using a rolling pin flatten to as thin a sheet as possible without causing the sheet of paste to break. You may want to lightly dust the parchment paper surface with powdered sugar if the paste is sticking to it and breaking.  Keeping the paste sheet between the sheets of parchment paper, place in an airtight container to prevent from drying out. Repeat this process five more times. Once you have six very thin sheets of flower-sugar-gum mixture, remove the sheets from the parchment paper and stack them together, flattening slightly with a rolling pin to aid adhesion. Roll the stacked sheets into a cylinder, and then cut crosswise into pinwheels. Flatten these pinwheels (to achieve a ‘marbled’ when using alternating colors of paste sheets) and then shape as desired. Dry in oven and then store in covered container.

Materials/ Ingredients

3 Flowers*

1 Bunch Roses (Orange)

1 Bunch Chrysanthemums (Pink)

1 Bunch Xenias (Yellow)

2 Binding Agents

NOW Guar Gum Powder, 8oz (Ingredients: pure guar)

Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum, 8oz (Ingredients: xanthan gum)

Sugar

Krasdale Pure Granulated Sugar, 4lb (Ingredients: sugar)

Domino confectioners’ pure cane sugar, 1lb (Ingredients: sugar, cornstarch)

Water

New York City Tap Water

Equipment/Tools:

1 Green Marble Mortar and Pestle (‘beat them in a morter’)

1 Medium Bowl (to collect petals in)

1 Wooden Rolling Pin (to ‘rowle’ with)

1 Metal Spoon (to transfer from various equipment)

1 Baking Sheet (to dessicate flowers)

1 Tablespoon Measure

1 Teaspoon Measure

1 Oven (‘dry them before the fire’)

Ingredient combinations**:

*Purchased at local Morningside Heights Bodega

** (p) indicates powder sugar, (g) indicates granulated sugar

Procedure (Instructions):

1.     Add flower petals to mortar and grind with pestle

2.     Add sugar

3.     Continue grinding until sugar changes colors

4.     Add gum

5.     Continue crushing

6.     Roll out paste on flat surface

7.     Stack layers of paste sheets

8.     Roll into cylinder

9.     Slice cylinder into marbled cross-sections

10. Roll slices thin until translucent

11. (Shape)

12. Dry before a fire

Metrics/ Procedural ambiguities:

·      Leave flower petals in or take them out after grinding

·      Dry flower petals vs wet flower petals

·      Xanthan vs Guar, which closer to tragacanth:

• Tragacanth - a natural gum obtained from the dried sap of several species of Middle Eastern legumes of the genus Astragalus, including A. adscendens, A. gummifer, A. brachycalyx, and A. tragacanthus. Source: Wikipedia
• Xanthan -  is a polysaccharide secreted by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris, used as a food additive andrheology modifier, commonly used as a food thickening agent. Source: Wikipedia
• Guar - Cyamopsis tetragonoloba is an annual legume and the source of guar gum. Developed from the African species Cyamopsis senegalesis. It was further domesticated in India and Pakistan, where it has been cultivated for many centuries. Guar grows well in semiarid areas, but frequent rainfall is necessary. Source: Wikipedia

·      Marbling/ shaping process:

• Separate colors rolled into pinwheel, sliced and rolled out vs. mix flowers in mortar before crushing

·      Shape before or after drying process

Observations:

Process: A1p

1.     Rinse the petals of 2 small, fresh roses

2.     Dab dry with clean napkin

3.     Add to mortar

4.     Add a tablespoon of Domino confectioners’ pure cane sugar (amount chosen arbitrarily based on visible proportions)

5.     Grind ingredients together

a.     Very fragrant

b.     Liquid immediately produced

c.      Creates a darker pink color than fresh flower

6.     After 2 minutes add another tablespoon of sugar and continue grinding

a.     Petals seem to form a paste from the liquid they produce

b.     More liquid produced by crushed flowers than expected

7.     Add petals of 1 more rose and 1 more tablespoon

a.     Very sticky

b.     Hardens into a candy-like texture if left exposed to air, but still malleable

c.      Rose petals not completely pulverized; may affect the translucency of the rolled out paste

d.     It has become clear removing petals would be impossible

8.     Switch out grinding participant

9.     After 10 minutes add 1 tsp of Guar gum (amount gathered from baking recipe online for modern gum paste flowers, here)

10. Continue to crush in mortar

a.     Immediately more gelatinous, color becomes a muted red

b.     Periodically scrape pestle with metal spoon

c.      Color has diluted a bit more

11. Use metal spoon to transfer from mortar to parchment paper

12. Use side of pestle to roll into flat sheet

a.     Not very effective, too sticky keeps clinging to the pin

13. Switch to a wooden rolling pin and add sugar to pin to stop from sticking

a.     Dries out very quickly and becomes brittle

14. Place in Tupperware to prevent from drying

15. Clean Mortar and pestle with water and rubbing

*Procedure for all successive iterations performed as A1p procedure with slight variations

Process: B3g

1.     Rinse off 4 Zinnias with cool tap water

2.     Dab dry and pull off petals

3.     Add 1 tbs Krasdale pure granulated sugar

a.     Petals more fibrous than roses

b.     Very wet; granulated sugar does not absorb moisture as well as powdered

c.      Granulated sugar makes the grinding process much easier

4.     After 1 minute add the petals of 2 more flowers

a.     Smells more like a plant less edible/appetizing than roses

b.     Small, smooth flowers seem to be best suited (Without veins)

c.      Quite a bit of water produced but fibers still quite intact

5.     After 4.5 minutes add xanthan gum

a.     Gum quite nice, sticks well to flowers

6.     Add another tablespoon of granulated sugar to try to bring to consistency to roll out

a.     Seems to turn to a nice gummy texture

b.     Quite viscous

c.      Turns into jelly when mixed with water on hands

d.     VERY slimy (smells like bananas)

7.     Does not roll well, sticks to everything

a.     Hard to get off of skin

8.     Place between two pieces of parchment paper and roll with pin

a.     Gum paste sheet sticks parchment paper

b.     guar much more water soluble than xanthan – observed during cleaning process

9.     Gum paste sheet appears to be unusable

Process: B1p

1.     Rinse petals of 2 roses with warm water

2.     Dab dry

3.     Place in mortar with 1 tablespoon of

a.     Roses are harder to crush, more structural integrity

b.     More like fruit than plant/ flower

4.     Add petals of two more roses

5.     Add one more tablespoon of powdered sugar

6.     Add 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum

a.     Quite a bit of liquid produced

b.     Too sticky, mucus texture

7.     Add 1 heaping teaspoon of powdered sugar.

8.     Continue to grind

a.     Much gummier with a bit more structural integrity

b.     Greater elasticity than simpler binding quality of guar gum

c.      Sticks to everything and very difficult to roll out into sheet

9.     Gum paste sheet appears to be unusable

Process: A2g

1.     Rinse off 10 chrysanthemum blossoms

2.     Dab dry

3.     Cut off bottom fibrous end and use top petal portion

4.     Put all petals into mortar and crush to make more space

a.     Flowers appear a bit drier, yellow zinnias the most wet, roses somewhere in between

5.     Add 1 tbs granulated sugar

6.     Crush

a.     Not quite as moist at start of grinding or as A1p

b.     Produce more liquid with more grinding, but similar to the zinnias, still quite fibrous (maintains petal structure)

7.     Still quite wet, add tsp guar and tbs of granulated sugar

a.     Granulated sugar does not seem to absorb enough of the liquid of the flowers to make viable pastes

b.     Looks quite sandy with added dry ingredients but upon touching it seemed a nice texture

c.      Guar gum appears to be most effective binding agent

8.     Use powdered sugar on rolling pin to make less sticky

9.     Place between two parchment papers and

Process: A1p with dried petals

Desiccating process:

Preheat oven to 300

Lower to 250 and spread rose petals out flat on foil sheet

Let petals heat for 5-7 minutes

Remove and allow to return to room temperature

a.     Dried chrysanthemum petals smell of sulfur or slightly spoiled milk

1.     Fill mortar with dried chrysanthemum petals (about 1 cup)

2.     Crush alone in mortar for 3 minutes

a.     QUITE fragrant

b.     Creates nice fine powder

3.     Add 1 tbs powdered sugar

4.     Add 1 tsp guar

5.     Add 1 tsp room temperature tap water mix with metal spoon

6.     Add 2nd tsp water

7.     Add 2 mini splashes of water and crush until better consistency, more tightly bound

a.     More rubbery consistency

8.     Flatten between parchment paper

Process: A1p (2x):

·      repeat process to produce more gum paste sheets to create final marble effect

2 tbs sugar

2 guar

mortar full of petals (~1 cup)

dust with powdered sugar before rolling out

Process: A3p

2 tsp guar

2 tbs powder sugar

mortar full of Zinnias (~1 cup)

Process: A2p with dry petals

-       uses much less sugar

-       much more pleasing purple color,

-       more intense color than wet flower

-       1.5 guar tsp

-       half a tsp of water added, then add until proper consistency

-       much more crumbly than rose dry version

-       larger grains so less bindable

-       proportions mostly guar and sugar

Producing final marble effect:

1.     slowly remove the

2.     too thick

3.     use 3 layers, cut into rectangular shape

4.     use heat of hand to make more malleable

5.     roll in palms of hands

6.     roll in parchment

7.     place in freezer for 1 minute

Conclusions

                The fidelity of materials to the original recipe seems essential to achieving any desirable effect. The primary difficulty that we faced was achieving and maintaining the proper consistency with the appropriate moisture content for the gum paste sheets. Samples such as the A1p and especially A1p with dried petals seemed the closest to the desired effect, especially immediately after production, but an unexpected difficulty we faced was finding an effective way to keep sheets moist while making subsequent sheets. Because of the poor texture of the gum past sheets we did not get to attempt the final shaping stage. This exercise gave us a great deal of confidence with working in reconstructions and learning how to adapt, experiment, and develop new courses of action when faced with difficulty.